


your family’s mine and mine’s yours

by wordcatchers



Category: The Beatles (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, christmas time abounds!, fix it fic where john is not dead, i am feeling SOFT therefore this sprung into existence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 10:54:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21968170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordcatchers/pseuds/wordcatchers
Summary: those damned hazel eyes are still as gorgeous now as they were in 1957.given several more minutes and the assurance that his sons are asleep enough, he and paul gather their guitars and make their way to the bedroom. plugged into amplifiers, volume as soft as possible, they sit next to each other on the edge of the mattress and melt into a melody. paul guides them to christmas, singing only for him, singing only with him.
Relationships: John Lennon/Paul McCartney
Comments: 16
Kudos: 65





	your family’s mine and mine’s yours

**Author's Note:**

> a murry crimble and hoppy hols to you all!
> 
> i always listen to music when writing, and the two tunes i mainly listened to while writing this were a vaporwave remix of wham!'s "last christmas" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfscwvbfbxA) and a slowed + reverb version of the weeknd's "blinding lights" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDVKMdnvgl8).

He’s an old man.

Sees it in Paul’s daughter, Beatrice, how she runs him out of breath. Less now than when she was a toddler, but even at nearly seventeen, she leaves him gobsmacked.

His fingers, now arthritic, won’t play the guitar like they used to. Sean and Julian play better and longer than he can now, but he tells them they’d be shit without their father guiding them when they were young lads. Jules sardonically reminds him that he didn’t learn everything from his dad, and Paul wraps his fingers around his right shoulder before John can even think of biting back.

Smiles instead, clinking glasses with his oldest. Admits again he was shit for the better part of nearly two decades, and shares a knowing smile with Paul.

The telly’s all static noise in the foreground, some Christmas special on the BBC. Something hogwash, rehashed, tradition still. Paul eyes his Höfner, and John waves him on, but his friend shrugs, his eyes saying it all: _not without you_.

 _Maybe later_ , he says back without words.

They come to a silent understanding.

Jules and Sean are somehow lulled into a warm stupor from the drinks before he and his fellow wrinkly old Beatle bandmate are. He figures his sons simply drank more. Either that, or he and Paul are invincible. Perhaps both.

He feels Paul’s fingers skirt over the back of his hand, eliciting a pleasant shiver. Humming, he turns his hand over to the palm and wraps it around Paul’s. Two old fuckers, they are, he thinks as he and Paul simply look at each other.

Those damned hazel eyes are still as gorgeous now as they were in 1957.

He blinks, moves to rest his head on Paul’s shoulder, a contented sigh escaping from between his lips. Touching is so good. They do so, _so_ much of it now, trying to make up for all the time they had treated it like something they couldn’t allow themselves the staying pleasure of. The glances turned slowly into gazes, light touches on the arm into hands wrapped around wrists, caressing, quick hugs into lingering embraces.

Given several more minutes and the assurance that his sons are asleep enough, he and Paul gather their guitars and make their way to the bedroom. Plugged into amplifiers, volume as soft as possible, they sit next to each other on the edge of the mattress and melt into a melody. Paul guides them to Christmas, singing only for him, singing only with him.

Minutes pass, turning into nearly fifteen before John has to stop for his fingers. He hasn’t toured like Paul has, hasn’t kept himself in the same springy shape. But Paul doesn’t mind, he’s come down from their Beatles touring days, an understanding finally reached.

_“Touring’s not my thing, mate. At least not as much as you do it.”_

_“Nothing wrong with it, though, yeah?”_

A snogging session had shut the then fifty-eight year old up.

They set their guitars back into a couple of free stands, returning to bed as soon as the instruments are locked in. Paul massages his fingers, easing the dull ache in his joints. John lifts his chin slightly, kissing the other man’s forehead, delights in the small laughter Paul breathes out. They’re so fucking soft, but neither cares. They’ve lived too long to give a thought to it.

They rest their foreheads together, humming a melody they make up on the spot. It’s something they do instinctively, all these decades writing together nearly melting their songwriting into one cohesive unit. One changes, alters a bit, and the other builds, completes; back and forth, back and forth. It’s magic, simply put, they never know how to explain it to the media any other way.

_“Bleeding same wavelength we’re on, aren’t we, Paul?”_

_“Wretched, innit?”_

_“Fuckin’ tosser!”_

The eighties had plenty of interviews like it. From taking pointed shots at each other during the early seventies to playful, biting banter a decade later. Time healed and growth took the place of past bitterness. They mellowed, but kept the bite that never meant anything but proof of long developed camaraderie.

Some part of John wants to sleep, but paternal instinct that took too long to kick in at first always hits him full force now, and he has to check on his grown boys. Holding Paul’s hand, he walks them back into the living area, placing blankets over his sons as they lay on the sofa and recliner, removing the glasses from Sean’s head. His cat, Rigby, purrs at his feet, wrapping her tail around Paul’s ankle.

“Think she wants her pressie early?” Paul whispers, nudging his shoulder against John’s.

He lowers his glasses, looking at Paul over them. “Think she wants treats and attention, Paulie.”

“Just like you, then,” Paul quips, snickering. John pulls a pretend grimace, then smirks.

“Know me well, Macca, you do,” he says softly, a hint of acerbic wit rolling off his tongue.

“Would hope so after decades of being chained to your side,” Paul jokes, lifting a foot and jangling imaginary chains connecting them. John wags a finger at him, though.

“Might want to have your head checked, mate; we put those chains on ourselves, and reckon they’ve worn down to soft string by now.”

Paul smiles. “Sturdy string, then.”

“Fuck you, love,” John murmurs and kisses Paul. His lips are familiar to him now, slightly chapped, but not enough to visibly show. Not as smooth as they had been in earlier decades, but they were _Paul_. Paul was all he needed. With him, by him, everywhere.

Time has attuned them to each other’s desires, but it’s never made things old hat. He’s still blinded by the way Paul makes him feel, amazed at how he can melt in Paul’s embraces, and the way his skin alights in how Paul touches him… nothing can ever compare.

He’s led back to the bedroom, shutting the door behind. They’ve left the Christmas tree lights on, the TV a low hum in the distance, his grown sons asleep. Tonight they’ll sleep beside each other.

Paul’s chest up against his back, arms wrapped around him, and John Lennon knows he’s the most contented seventy-nine year old around. Arguably, Paul takes up the slot of most contented seventy-seven year old. He doesn’t regret a thing about his life, especially now that he knows where he ended up. It took two marriages, a couple or so decades of returning to bachelor life, and watching Paul stumble through a second marriage after Linda, lovely Linda, passed on, before they both got here, but they’re here. Finally.

He knows in the morning that Paul will take him to visit with the Macca progenies for their Christmas day festivities; tonight was for the small Lennon family. Small, but wholly his. Theirs.

_“Lennon-McCartney, your family’s mine and mine’s yours, yeah?”_

John had kissed him as his sons filled their Christmas Eve dinner plates up.

_“Course, Paul.”_

Presents opened, his cat nestling into bed with them, shoes off and bedclothes on. John nestles even closer to Paul, tingles at Paul’s warm breath on the nape of his neck. The pillow is soft, comforting, but doesn’t compare to Paul’s presence.

He’s happy.


End file.
